LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 







.UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



tICA. | 



MANAGEMENT AND OBJECTS 



PEABODY INSTITUTE 



N. H. MOEISON, 



PROVOST OF THE INST1TVTE. 



MANAGEMENT AND OBJECTS 



PEABODT INSTITUTE 



CITY OF BALTIMORE. 



»v 



N'. H. MORISON, 
tir— - 

PBOV09T OF THE INSTITUTE. 







- 



18. 




BALTIMORE 1 . . . STEAM PRESS OF WM. K. BOYLE. 
1871. 



4^ 



AN EXPLANATION. 



During the month of February, 1871, two articles 
appeared in the "Saturday Night " a weekly paper pub- 
lished in Baltimore, severely criticizing the management 
of the Peabody Institute by its trustees and their chief 
executive officer. In reply to these criticisms, and with 
the desire to correct if possible the wide-spread misappre- 
hensions of the public with regard to the true objects and 
conditions of the Peabody endowment, several articles, 
which are here substantially reproduced, were published in 
successive numbers of the same paper. The material points 
made by the critic were the following : 

1. That the title of provost was ill-chosen, and most 
unfortunate as suggestive of arbitrary proceedings during 
the recent war. 

2. That the provost is not the librarian, and performs, 
for the public, none of the duties of a librarian, while he 
exercises supreme authority in making and enforcing harsh 
and senseless rules. 

3. That the exclusion of the public from unrestricted 
access to the books on the shelves is arbitrary, unnecessary, 
and altogether unusual in such institutions. 

4. That no catalogue has been printed, or is likely to 
be for an indefinite and unknown period of time. 

5. That the attendants in the reading room are wanting 
in courtesy, and disobliging to visitors. 

6. That the reading room is rendered solemn, gloomy, 
and disagreeable by the silence which prevails there, the 



4fc MANAGEMENT OP THE INSTITUTE. 

attendant answering loud questions in a low "whisper 
which is at once a reply and a caution." 

7. That gentlemen are not allowed to occupy, even in 
rainy days, that part of the room which is reserved for 
ladies, and are often warned hy the attendant to leave 
the ladies 7 seats. 

8. That the entire management of the Institute has heen 
"halting," "blundering," "wanting in common sense," 
and not what "Mr. Peabody designed" it to be. 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 

I assume, Mr. Editor, that you have made your severe 
attack on me and the Institute from erroneous or imperfect 
information ; and, while I am extremely unwilling to 
enter into the public discussion of a subject which must 
necessarily be more or less personal, I cannot resist the 
impulse to correct some of the statements made in the two 
articles which you have recently published — articles which 
do me great injustice, and the trustees of this Institute 
great wrong. 

You object to the title of "provost" as an odious one, 
and evidently confound the word with another having the 
same spelling but quite a different pronunciation, and a 
military signification. In the great universities of Eng- 
land and Scotland, provost — pronounced prov'-ust — is the 
title generally given to the heads of colleges ; and it is 
also given to the head-master of Eton and some of the 
other great schools. In this city it has long been a 
familiar term as the title recently borne by Mr. Kennedy, 
and now by Mr. Wallis, as the presiding officer of the 
University of Maryland. When the committee proposed, 
and the trustees sanctioned, this title for the new execu- 
tive officer of the Institute, I presume they thought they 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



were following good English authorities while they adopted 
a name quite familiar to our own intelligent citizens. 

The trustees are the supreme authority here, and are 
responsible for what they permit as well as for what they 
direct. I have seen no indications of their unwillingness 
to assume this responsibility. They make or sanction all 
rules , and appoint the officers who are to enforce them. 

I am simply the executive officer of the Institute. I 
have no authority and no disposition to make rules for the 
library, or any other department of the Institute. My 
power and my duty end when I have enforced the rules 
prescribed, and have recommended such alterations in 
them as experience suggests. The rules for the govern- 
ment of each department are made by the committee in 
charge, and are sanctioned by the Board of Trustees. The 
rules for the government of the library were made when 
the library was first opened. Only two changes have 
been made in them — one raising the age for admission to 
the use of the library from 12 to 16 years, and the other 
giving to ladies the exclusive use of two sets of tables. 
Experience had taught the need of both of these changes ; 
and the rule regarding age is the same as the one adopted 
in the Librarv of Congress, and in the Boston Public 
Library. 

The rules which govern our library were all drawn from 
those of similar institutions elsewhere ; for the regulations 
adopted in such libraries are essentially the same all over the 
world. The trustees wisely declined to repeat an experi- 
ment which had been tried and abandoned everywhere, of 
leaving cases containing rare and costly books open to the 
visits of the public without restriction. It is a law as 
firmly established as any law in physics, and by the same 
process of experiment and induction, that books thus ex- 
posed will be abused. Some of them will be stolen, some 
scribbled over, some soiled and mutilated ; while fine 
engravings will be soiled, or torn, or cut out, or so bent in 
folding as to render them almost useless. It is a melan- 
choly fact that many respectable people, and especially 



D MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE, 

many collectors of books, cannot resist the temptation to 
get possession of a rare volume, when the opportunity 
offers. Ask our former librarian his experience in this 
regard, and he may possibly inform you where he sup- 
poses some of our missing volumes now are. Ask the 
Historical Society where its manuscript copy of Father 
White's Journal is to be found. Ask Mr. Magruder, of 
the State Library, at Annapolis, where many of the early 
records of Maryland are, which once adorned his alcoves. 
Ask the officers of our own Mercantile Library, which does 
not profess to hold precious documents to any great extent, 
what their experience is. If ordinary libraries, having 
restricted membership, suffer in this way, how will it be in a 
free library like ours, with its many rare and costly books? 

Now, I assert, without the fear of contradiction, that 
this restriction in visiting the cases is found in every great 
library in this country and in Europe ; and I believe that 
the committee in charge acted wisely when they adopted 
this rule of exclusion. 

Our library contains books of great cost, and some of 
great rarity. Books are occasionally coming into it which 
have cost our agents five or six years of careful and sys- 
tematic hunting before a copy could be found. Orders are 
now out for books which our London agent informs me he 
has advertised in every part of the United Kingdom with- 
out finding a copy, and ten years may elapse before one 
is secured. Shall books like these be exposed to sure 
destruction or loss to gratify the curiosity of casual visitors? 
And is the rule a bad one which guards such treasures — 
even at some inconvenience to the public — for the use of 
real students, who, in this library, have never been and 
never will be denied access to them ? The loss of a few 
books in a popular library is of small importance, because 
they can easily, and at a small cost, be replaced, or others 
of equal value can be substituted for them ; but such is 
not the case with a learned library which this is to be. 
The Strasburg Library, recently destroyed, can no more 
be replaced than the Alexandrian Library, or the Arab 
libraries of Spain, or the Aztic libraries of Mexico. 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 7 

You are totally mistaken as to the facility of access to 
the alcoves granted to visitors at the Harvard Library. I 
have known Mr. Sibley for more than thirty years, and was 
a schoolmate of his chief assistant, Dr. Abbot, undoubtedly 
the most learned librarian in this country. As a student 
in college, I had the free use of that library, and have 
been in the habit of visiting it almost every year since. 
Across the entrance to every alcove is a bar, on which is a 
notice in large letters of "No Admittance !'" and no longer 
ago than last week an article appeared in the Harvard 
Advocate, written by an under-graduate, complaining of 
the rule which shuts visitors from these alcoves. The 
inexperience of youth may properly excuse such a com- 
plaint ; but I have never yet seen a real student who was 
not willing to subject himself to some formalities — for that 
is all it amounts to in any library — for the sake of guard- 
ing, for his own use, treasures so important and precious. 
In the Harvard Library too, one person has exclusive 
charge of the engravings, and no one else is allowed even 
to touch them. He always turns them over for visitors. 
The Boston Athenaeum is owned by a private corporation, 
and its library is used only by its members ; but even here 
an attendant must accompany the reader to its alcoves. 

The Boston Public Library, the most popular and pro- 
bably the most useful library in the world, unless the 
Manchester Free Library, an institution of precisely the 
same character, surpasses it in usefulness, divides its 
immense collections between two halls. The books in 
one hall, consisting, on the 1st of January, 1871, of 
32,000 volumes, circulate among the entire population 
of the city ; while the books in the other hall, consisting 
of 135,000 volumes, are kept within the walls of the 
building for reference. To the circulating portion of the 
library the public has no access whatever, and only when 
accompanied by an attendant can a visitor enter the N 
alcoves of the reference library. This library is sup- 
ported, like the public schools, by a city tax ; and a few 
days ago, Mr. Windsor, the superintendent, who spent 



8 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



several hours in examining our arrangements, informed 
me that last year $70,000 were devoted to it, or $25,000 
more than the income of the whole Peabody fund during 
the same period. If any where in the world, one would 
expect to find in this library freedom of access to the 
books. As an officer of a kindred institution, and to gain 
useful information I have repeatedly visited its alcoves, 
but never without an attendant. 

The Astor Library follows the same rule. The Library 
of Congress is far more stringent than we are in excluding 
visitors from its alcoves. Mr. Spofford, the librarian, 
iuformed me, a few weeks since, that he never permitted 
any reader to enter them. Even the Mercantile Library of 
Pittsburgh, which is a popular institution, has recently 
been compelled to adopt this rule, and the public complain 
of it as they do here ; but the directors announce their 
determination to adhere to the plan of exclusion, though 
it has cost them some subscriptions. The same rule is 
followed by the British Museum, the Manchester Free 
Library, the Imperial Library in Paris, the Royal Library 
in Berlin, in fact by all the great libraries the world over. 

This rule, then, of the Peabody Library, is not a pecu- 
liar or an arbitrary one, working unusual hardships; but 
it is necessary aud proper as all experience shows, and I 
am informed by some of the directors of the Mercantile 
Library in this city, that it will be adopted by them as 
soon as they can get into a building which will render it 
possible. Our librarian, Mr. Uhler, has full authority to 
allow any one, who wants to investigate any special sub- 
ject, to go to the cases with an attendant, and scarcely a 
day passes without persons availing themselves of this 
privilege. Ihis, of course, takes up valuable time, and 
mere idlers, who want to see the books without having 
any especial object in view, should not thus occupy the 
officers of the Institute ; but no one who has expressed a 
wish to see our collection on any given subject has ever, 
to my knowledge, been denied. 

You complain that we have no printed catalogue. We 
have, in the reading-room, two complete card catalogues 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. V 

of the library, one of authors and one of subjects ; and 
a card catalogue is the only one possible^ or that is of 
any use, while a library is rapidly forming. A printed 
catalogue would become obsolete in a few months. A card 
catalogue was the only one used in the Boston Public 
Library until its collection had reached 50,000 volumes ; 
and it is the only one now used in the Harvard Library, 
with 123,000 volumes. Every spare moment of our libra- 
rian's time is now occupied in preparing a catalogue for 
printing, which will open to the public as complete a 
knowledge of our collection of books as it is possible to 
present in such a work. We intend to make this cata- 
logue a real help to our readers, and an honor to the Insti- 
tute and to the city. You speak lightly of this work, as 
of a task that could be finished in a day. Have you any 
adequate idea of the amount of labor which it involves ? 
Let me inform you that it has already occupied Mr. Uhler 
and his assistants one year, and it will probably take 
another year to complete it. When finished, it will form 
a royal octavo volume of from 1,600 to 2,000 closely 
printed pages in double columns. About 60,000 titles 
have already been written out for it. Dr. Abbot and his 
assistants have been engaged for some six years on the 
Harvard catalogue, with no prospect of finishing it in the 
immediate future. We are advancing as fast in the pre- 
paration of our catalogue, as a proper regard for thorough- 
ness and accuracy will permit. 

You complain that the attendant in the reading-room 
frequently cautions persons against handling the books 
on bistable by saying, " it is against the rules." That 
attendant is engaged, during his spare moments, on this 
catalogue and kindred work ; and a derangement of the 
books which he is analyzing and recording is a serious 
interruption to an occupation requiring such cautious 
accuracy I think it would be difficult to devise a more 
inoffensive method of informing people that they are 
interrupting his work. 



10 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



I have been thus full in discussing the rule which 
excludes persons from the book cases, because I have 
repeatedly heard the complaint before from persons who 
have no knowledge of the management or the needs of 
great libraries. I have never heard it from a student 
accustomed to use them. 

You complain of the gloomy silence of our reading 
room ? It is an unusually cheerful room, and certainly 
the students who occupy it cannot agree with you in 
thinking it buried in "funeral gloom;" for they have 
frequently expressed to me their gratification at the quiet 
which enables them to pursue their studies without inter- 
ruption. You should not forget, that this is a library of 
reference, whose books must be studied in the reading 
room or not at all. The reader who is disturbed in his 
investigations there, cannot adjourn to his own study, 
because he cannot take the books he wants with him. 
Allow conversation and noise in that room, and the whole 
collection of books becomes as useless as they would be in 
another planet. A recent writer in a foreign review, com- 
plains of the Imperial Library in Paris, because, there being 
no carpet on the floor, the footfall of visitors and attendants 
seriously interrupts the studies of the readers. And are we 
to disregard the great objects for which this library was 
created, and annul the evident purpose of its founder, by 
surrendering its quiet reading room to the foolish gossip of 
such men and women as may choose to make it a trysting 
place ? To state such a proposition is to refute it. 

And yet such a calamity once threatened us, and it 
required skillful management to avert the danger ; but we 
have succeeded in doing so, and our readers are now enjoy- 
ing the benefit of a place of quiet, studious repose. I do 
not think Mr. Peabody's spirit will be greatly disquieted 
by knowing this. 

Is it unreasonable that two sets of tables and one window 
in the reading room should be devoted to the separate use 
of ladies? These tables occupy less than one-fourth of the 
room. All ladies, but timid ones especially, do not like to 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



11 



enter public rooms filled with men, where no fixed seats 
are provided for them. Their request for separate accommo- 
dations was reasonable ; and, when I brought the subject 
before the committee, it was immediately granted. During 
the day, the ladies are almost as constant in their attend- 
ance at the library as the gentlemen. If gentlemen, in 
the absence of the ladies, are allowed to occupy their seats, 
a lady on entering the room will be subjected to the same 
embarrassment she had before separate seats were assigned 
to the ladies. She must either take her seat among the men 
or retire altogether. On each of the tables devoted to ladies, 
is a card with the legend, " Exclusively for ladies," printed 
in large letters. This notice is sufficient for most gentle- 
men ; but it seems, from the complaint, that there are some 
who need, in addition, to be personally reminded that they 
are in the wrong place. 

I know that the trustees desire to accommodate the 
public to the utmost, and to furnish to students every 
reasonable facility for pursuing their studies. I have 
accordingly urged upon the attention of all the officers of 
the Institute, the importance of showing the utmost 
courtesy to all visitors, the reasonable and the unreason- 
able ; and also the importance of enforcing the rules 
prescribed by the trustees. I have every reason to believe 
that both of these injunctions have been substantially com- 
plied with. It is not impossible that a page in the reading 
room may have occasionally assumed an authority not con- 
ferred upon him, or have spoken to visitors in a tone or 
with a positiveness that was irritating ; but such conduct 
might occur anywhere. It has never been defended or 
approved here, and, when known, it will not be permitted. 
Any complaint, to the librarian or to me, of disrespect on 
the part of attendants, will meet with prompt attention 
and correction. 

It is true, as you say, that I am not the librarian, but 
the general executive officer of the Institute. In that 
capacity, it is my duty, under the direction of the trustees 
and the committees, to attend to its business affairs, and 



12 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



to superintend all its departments — its library, its lectures, 
its academy of music, and its gallery of art, when that 
shall be established. If the public has any interest in 
knowing a matter of so little importance, I certainly do 
not object to saying that all my time, not employed in the 
general supervision of the Institute, is devoted to selecting 
books for this library — a work which I entered upon with 
the determined purpose of making the library an institu- 
tion which the city shall some day be proud of possessing. 
This task of selecting books is not an unimportant or an 
easy one. I have spent upon it nearly four years of the 
severest labor I have ever performed. Before any pur- 
chases are made, all lists of books have to be submitted to 
the Library Committee for their examination and approval. 
I am responsible for the selection of the books placed on 
these lists, and the library will show with what degree of 
intelligence and faithfulness the Committee and myself 
have performed our duties in these purchases. I am not 
ashamed of the work performed, nor afraid to have it 
examined by any competent authority. 

We cannot create scholars or readers to use our library ; 
but we can make a collection of books which all scholars 
will appreciate, when they shall appear among us, as they 
surely will do some day ; or we can make a collection 
which will merely duplicate the volumes which every gen- 
tleman has on his own shelves, can borrow from a friend, 
or buy in a neighboring shop. It is quite apparent that 
there will be some difference in the value of these two col- 
lections, and in the difficulty of forming them. 

It would be easy to pile in books by the car load from the 
catalogues of publishers and dealers, which always flood 
such establishments as this ; but it is quite a different thing 
to select with care every volume, putting none on the lists 
except with a full knowledge of its value. Not convinced 
that all knowledge is centered in one individual., however 
remarkable his attainments, I have sought aid in these se- 
lections from every available source, and from men of the 
most varied pursuits. It is evident that the man, whose 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



13 



position requires hini to know the past history of a science 
or art, and to keep fully up with its present advancement, 
can render invaluable services in the selection of books for 
a library, by indicating the best authorities, living and 
dead, in his own department of knowledge. Though such 
men are usually very busy with their own affairs, my friendly 
relations with many of them enabled me to secure their aid. 
So Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, and Lehigh, the Uni- 
versity of Virginia, the University of South Carolina, and 
the University of Michigan, were laid under contribution 
for the benefit of this library. Lovering, and Grould, and 
Torrey, and Lowell, and Dawson of Montreal, Greene, 
Marsh, Silliman, Lesly, Mayer, Smith, De Vere. Le Conte, 
Evans, Donaldson, Johnson, Latrobe, Rogers, and our own 
Uhler, furnished lists, each naming the most important 
books, new and old, in his own department of knowledge. 
My own labor on the selections has been incessant, and Mr. 
Uhler has been equally devoted ; and we have worked to- 
gether in entire harmony, he in science and I in literature, 
as our tastes have directed us. The first great aim of the 
trustees has been to keep the library fully abreast of the 
times, to make its books fairly represent all the great activi- 
ties and discoveries of the day, in science, literature, his- 
tory, art, antiquities, philosophy, politics, and the indus- 
trial arts. The latest and best works on all these subjects 
are first purchased, and what remains of our means is 
devoted to the literature of the past. 

I have been thus particular in describing the mode in 
which our books have been selected, in order to show how 
faithful the trustees have been to their trust. Quietly, 
without pause, but without parade or the blowing of trum- 
pets, amidst much ignorant caviling and vituperation, they 
have pursued their work of collecting a library which should 
furnish to the student the best books in all languages, and 
in all departments of human knowledge. They have spared 
no trouble, labor, nor expense to secure this result. I doubt 
whether there is a library in the land in which the same 
pains have been taken to secure the best, and to avoid use- 



14 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



less books. In purchasing this library, they have already 
spent more than $130,000, and they have determined that, 
for all future time, $10,000 shall every year be devoted to 
its increase. They have thrown its doors wide open to all 
comers, with only such proper restrictions as are usual in 
all such libraries — restrictions which are absolutely neces- 
sary to guard the property, and to secure to the reader a 
place of undisturbed repose for his studies. I know of no 
kindred library in which the invitation to come and partake 
of its treasured stores is so full, free, and generous, or ac- 
companied with so few restrictions. The Boston Public 
Library limits its privileges, with some exceptions, to the 
citizens of Boston ; and even these, if not known to the libra- 
rian, must give references to those who are known ; but the 
Peabody Library asks no questions of citizenship or coun- 
try. Its reader needs no introduction to its officers, no form 
of admission whatever. Whether citizen or stranger, ob- 
scure or distinguished, known or unknown, he has but to 
call for the books, one or many, which he needs, and they 
will be furnished. The very day on which a writer in one 
of our morning papers recently asserted that our books are 
locked up and useless, three persons expressed to me the 
great satisfaction they had enjoyed that day in consulting 
these closed and useless volumes. One of the persons was 
a distinguished geologist from a neighboring city, whose 
name is widely known ,in the country, the second was a 
rising young physicist of our own city, and the third was 
an intelligent lady in search of monumental marbles. I 
mention the fact as a remarkable coincidence, none of these 
persons having seen the flippant sneer in the paper. 

It is a total mistake to suppose that this library is not 
used. More than 2,500 different individuals used it last 
year, and the number is greater now. The number of per- 
sons making learned investigations has greatly increased 
within a year. It might, indeed, be used much more 
extensively than it is, had we more students or literary and 
scientific men among us. But it is doing precisely the work 
which Mr. Peabody intended that it should do, and in the 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



15 



precise manner in which he prescribed that it should he 
done. Students find among our hooks and periodicals the 
freshest and most important works, and frequently express 
to me, and more frequently to Mr. Uhler, their satisfaction 
in unmeasured terms. The courts of law have several times 
sent for our hooks to elucidate points of importance in cases 
before them — books which they could find no where else in 
the city. A map in our possession is likely to have an im- 
portant influence in settling the oyster boundary between 
our own State and Virginia. A professor in a distant col- 
lege, who had examined our collection in Anglo-Saxon, 
Early English, and English Literature, recently sent for a 
list of these books as the most complete he had seen in the 
country. He wished to have it as a guide in the selections 
he was making for his own college. We thus pay a portion 
of the debt which we owe for outside aid received in making 
our own selections. 

Mr. Uhler, under my general supervision, has charge of 
all the details of the library, the investigation of editions 
and prices, the copying of lists, the reception and record- 
ing of books, and their arrangement on the shelves, the 
carding, the cataloguing, and the supplying of books to 
readers. He has performed all his duties with intelligence 
and zeal, and his duties to the public with more than 
courtesy and kindness ; for he has spent much time in 
directing the researches of students, and pointing out the 
proper sources of information. For his part in the con- 
duct of the library he deserves the highest credit, and I 
am glad his services are appreciated. But his subordi- 
nates deserve equal credit in their spheres. Coming into 
more immediate contact with the public, they have shown 
great patience and tact in meeting the peculiarities, the 
unreasonable dispositions and tempers, which they occasion- 
ally encounter. I think it would be difficult to find young 
men more uniformly attentive and courteous than they. 

I regret to have been compelled by your attack to say so 
much of my own personal doings in this statement ; for, 
in the conduct of a great institution like this, persons are 
of small importance compared with results. 



16 



MANAGEMENT OF THE INSTITUTE. 



"I feel a deep interest in the success of this noble orna- 
ment of your city, and trust, that, as its plan is more and 
more clearly developed to your people, it may enlist, not 
only the favor of the cultivated classes, (which it has to a 
great extent already,) but also the attachment and pride 
of the great mass of the citizens. They may be sure, that 
when intelligent strangers speak of Baltimore, they are 
apt to mention as its first attraction, not Druid Hill Park 
or the Washington Monument, beautiful as they are, but 
the Peabody Institute, with its valuable library, and its 
elegant appointments. '■ 

So wrote to me a few months since one of Virginia's 
most cultivated and gifted sons, and so write and feel 
many others who look upon our city from a distance, 
or examine it within as the above gentleman had done. 
I believe that the Peabody Institute is, at this moment, 
doing more to elevate and adorn the character of Bal- 
timore in the eyes of thinking men, more to spread its 
name abroad in the world, giving it honor and respect 
where honor and respect are most valuable, than any, 
nay, than all other institutions within its borders. There 
was a quiet sarcasm, not without truth, in that witty 
saying of Dr. Holmes, that Baltimore's chief monument 
should be crowned with a canvas-back duck ; and this 
Institute is doing its part to redeem the fair f^me of 
our city from reproach, by showing that it possesses other 
objects of attraction besides the delicacy and abundance 
of its food. Our name and purposes are known in every 
civilized country of the globe. We send our reports and 
publications to all the great libraries and academies, and 
to most of the learned societies, of Europe ; and we receive 
in return similar publications from them. There is not a 
European capital in which this Institute is not known. 
Even as I write a package of books comes in from a learned 
society in Switzerland, a gift to our library. The extract 
which I have given above, is but one of many specimens 
of the same kind which we have received. 

Our lectures have called to this city many of the most 
accomplished scholars and learned men in the country, 



MANAGEMENT OF ' THE INSTITUTE. 17 

who have examined the Institute, especially its library and 
lecture departments, and have carried awa} r with them 
a feeling of profound respect for its objects, and a high 
appreciation of the work which it is doing ; and they have 
spread its fame through every corner of the land. Our 
library, though the latest founded, is one of the best work- 
ing libraries for students in the country, because it con- 
tains the latest publications in every department of know- 
ledge. 

No city can make any pretensions to a literary char- 
acter without a great library, which shall retain its own 
scholars at home or call in others from abroad. I happen 
to know of three persons of high scientific attainments 
whose abode has been fixed, at least temporarily, among 
us by this library. An aged professor in a neighboring 
college told me that it would decide his choice of a future 
home in our favor. The library is the great central figure 
in the Institute, absorbing much the largest part of its 
funds, and much the greatest portion of the attention, 
thought, and time of its officers ; and, should all the other 
departments fail, this library, if properly conducted, will 
remain a splendid monument of the munificence of its 
founder, and an object worthy of the just pride and 
patriotic attachment of the people. 

It is one of the few institutions within our limits, which 
is even attempting to lift its head above the ordinary and 
the common, the only one which is helping to win for our 
city a just renown among cultivated men. Yet there is a 
class of persons among us, who seldom visit its halls, who 
have never made themselves acquainted with the objects 
which it proposes to accomplish, or with the manner in 
which it is accomplishing these objects, or with the 
usages and possibilities of such institutions, and who yet 
feel quite competent to pronounce judgment on all that it 
does, and have no scruples in calling its rules "absurd," 
and its managers incapable and wanting in "common 
sense." 



18 MANAGEMENT OT THE INSTITUTE.' 

And pray, who are these managers, the men who make 
these "absurd regulations," and who are so ignorant of 
all that relates to the proper government of such an insti- 
tution ? One would suppose that they must be obscure 
adventurers, men quite unknown to the public, who, igno- 
rant of their duties, have private, personal ends of their 
own to accomplish. Read the list of trustees past and pre- 
sent, and tell me where you will find men -more respected 
in the city, and more interested in its welfare ; men of 
wider views or higher aims in life. Who among us have 
attained a broader and more generous culture, or have 
won a higher position among men of letters than some of 
them ? Who have ranked higher in professional service, 
or have been more confided in and respected than some of 
them ? Who among merchants can show a purer record 
of personal integrity, who among gentlemen can show a 
more refined and cultivated taste, who among our citizens 
can show a more glowing zeal, a more untiring energy, or a 
more unselfish devotion to public duty than some of these ? 
You will scarcely find a commercial enterprise, a church or 
charity fund, a trusteeship for hospital or educational pur-. 
poses, or a society founded to promote science, literature, 
art, or even social improvement, in which some of these 
names do not appear. Even Mr. Johns Hopkins, who, in 
his munificent endowment of a university, has promised to 
Baltimore the most precious gift which she or the State 
has ever yet received from any individual or any body of men, 
could find no better names to enroll among those who are 
to administer his bounty than several of these. A more 
disinterested body of men I have never known — men 
unwilling to derive any personal advantage whatever from 
their relations to the Institute, and for the time and 
thought they bestow upon it — men who purchase tickets to 
its lectures and concerts for their own families rather than 
abuse the privilege of free admission. 

You must remember that all these gentlemen were per- 
sonally known to Mr. Peabody, and many of them were 
his intimate friends, with whom he conversed freely, and 



VIEWS OF MR. PEABODY. 



19 



to whom he explained his views fully. As Mr. Peabody 
himself once said, if these gentlemen cannot manage the 
Institute properly, who can? 

These are the men, who, we are modestly requested to 
believe, have no knowledge of the work which they have 
undertaken to perform, who have totally misunderstood 
the views and wishes of Mr. Peabody, and are actually 
engaged in perverting this noble endowment to purposes 
utterly unimportant and useless. I write without the 
inspiration, or the knowledge, of the trustees ; but I can- 
not resist the temptation to make known an important 
fact. Mr. Peabody, on his last visit to this city, a year 
and a half ago, after making careful inquiry into the man- 
agement of the Institute, expressed, in unqualified terms, 
his approbation of what the trustees had done. I was pre- 
sent at the meeting, and heard his speech reviewing their 
work, confirming their acts, and expressing his entire 
satisfaction at the course they had pursued. 

* 

VIEWS OF MR. PEABODY. 

It is not an agreeable feeling which we experience when 
we discover deficiences in our dearest friends, nor is it an 
agreeably duty to feel compelled to note those which we 
find in our own cit} r . In what I am about to say I but 
utter the thought of many of our most intelligent people, 
repeatedly and without reserve expressed to each other, 
and the thought of our best friends abroad. The genial 
mildness of the climate, the shortness of the winters, the 
undulations of the ground, the cheerful aspect of the 
houses, the delicious and abundant supplies of the markets, 
and, above all, the social character of her people, give to 
Baltimore a charm which few cities possess in an equal 
degree. But her public edifices are few, her hotels are 
said to be uninviting and dreary, and her places of amuse- 
ment meagre and unattractive. Yery few persons from 
abroad make this their winter residence, and still fewer 
return for a second winter. With these wants I have little 



^0 



VIEWS OF MR. PEABODT. 



to do, though I do not underrate their importance ; and I 
rejoice in the effort now making to relieve them. I turn 
to a different class of wants which have a vastly greater 
influence on < the reputation of the city abroad, on the 
respect she will win from mankind in the present and in 
the future. To multiply physical enjoyments is not all 
that we need. The attractions of a city must be multiform 
as well as numerous ; and the means which she provides 
for intellectual improvement will be among the most 
powerful of these attractions. There are few cities which 
would not prefer the fame of an Athens to that of an 
Antioch ; and even modern Paris could not maintain her 
influence in the world, did she not add to her amusements 
and frivolities the solid advantages of the highest culture 
in science, literature, ajid art. 

Of all the great cities of the country, Baltimore has made 
the least effort to provide her people with the means of 
obtaining a high intellectual culture. She possesses fewer 
ot those institutions of a higher grade, which furnish 
facilities for advanced study in any of the liberal arts. 
Her gifted and ambitious sons must pursue their studies 
under great disadvantages at home, or go to other places 
which furnish more generously the necessary aids. She 
has no university or college in which to gather those of her 
children who have wealth, leisure, and the desire to adorn 
a high social position with generous culture ;or in which 
to instruct those gifted spirits in a different social class, 
who burn with zeal for knowledge, with ambition to rise, 
and with strength to reach the highest intellectual position. 
She has no gallery or museum of art, and no academy of 
music in which to instruct her young artists, or by means 
of which to spread a taste for these refining pursuits 
among her people. She has no museum of natural history, 
no chemical or mechanical laboratory, no course of scien- 
tific lectures, no collections in antiquities, botany, geology, 
or mineralogy ; not even a collection of the meanest kind, 
representing the geology and mineral resources of our own 
State. Her own children must go to Washington or Phila- 



VIEWS OF SIR. PEABODY. 



21 



delphia for specimens to illustrate the productions and the 
natural history of her own soil. Lecturers at the Institute 
have been compelled repeatedly to do this. All her insti- 
tutions are of the medium, common sort -very respectable 
primary and high schools, with the usual number of chari- 
ties,. Her Historical Society, her Academy of Sciences, 
and her Mechanics' Institute, the only institutions that 
make any pretensions to a higher grade of culture, are all 
in a languishing condition, all need funds and a better 
support. I have repeatedly heard intelligent citizens 
assert that Baltimore has to-day a smaller number of per- 
sons within her limits, who are interested in scientific 
pursuits and historical studies, than she had thirty years 
ago. Though this may be an over statement, I think there 
can be no doubt that she has lost ground in comparison 
with her sister cities. While their means of improvement, 
and the number of their learned men have vastly increased, 
Baltimore has remained nearly stationary. 

JS T ow, imagine Mr. Peabody in his banking house in 
London, a city filled with those treasures of learning and 
art which it has taken centuries to gather, with libraries, 
and galleries, and museums, and laboratories, and colleges, 
and all the appliances which genius has devised and wealth 
provided to strengthen, elevate, and adorn humanity — 
imagine him looking out upon this city of his adoption, 
this home of his early manhood, with the earnest desire to 
do something to relieve its destitution, to aid the growth 
of a higher culture among its people. Might not the ques- 
tion of what to do, be a puzzling one? So much was 
needed that any selection he might make would leave 
something else of equal importance undone. Then, there 
was the danger of attempting too much, of spreading his 
bounty over too broad a space, and of thus exciting unrea- 
sonable expectations, and inevitable disappointment. The 
sum he chose to give was large, but it could not possibly 
supply all the wants of the city. 

Guided by others in the choice of objects on which to be- 
stow his bounties, he had his own ideas of the end to be 



22 VIEWS OF MR. PEABODT, 

accomplished, and of the way in which that end was to he 
reached. These ideas were such as would he likely to com- 
mend themselves to a character like his He was a self- 
made man, and had felt the value of a helping hand in his 
early struggles with poverty. His sympathies were strongly 
enlisted on the side of all who, wishing to rise, are making 
manly efforts to do so. In all his public gifts, he seems to 
have adopted a maxim very common among self-made men, 
of helping those, and those only, who are willing to help 
themselves. He left the indolent and the indifferent to reap 
the proper fruits of their own conduct. As he had little 
patience and no sympathy with such, he made no provision 
for their improvement but by a change in their habits. He 
bestowed very little in actual charity. He builds comfort- 
able houses in London which are rented at moderate prices 
to the pooi*. The industrious poor man thus acquires a neat, 
healthful, and convenient home for his family at a very 
reasonable rate, such a home as he could obtain in no other 
way. He makes large donations for schools in our Southern 
States on condition that the people raise from, three to five times 
the amount for. the same purpose. He does not endow free 
schools, but simply offers to the people a premium for cre- 
ating such schools for themselves. If one place declines 
the conditions, his agent is directed, like the Apostles of 
old, to turn to another more worthy of his bounty ; and the 
agent finds no difficulty in distributing it on these terms. 
The $110,000 which he last year bestow r ed on the South 
drew from the people fully $550,000 more for the educa- 
tion of its people. He founds an Institute of the highest 
grade in Baltimore, which he requires the people to aid in 
supporting, if they wish to enjoy its advantages. He dis- 
tributes premiums in our schools to such pupils as surpass 
their felloios in study and deportment. 

And so through all his bounties the same idea is promi- 
nent. Nowhere is it alms which he bestows, but reward ; 
nowhere something for nothing, but everywhere something 
in exchange for something else. Some return must be made, 
some effort put forth, by those who are candidates for what 



THE OBJECTS OF THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 



23 



he has to give. He extends aid to him who is struggling 
to advance ; he encourages him who is making manly efforts 
to improve ; he helps him who has climbed to the top of all 
that lies within his reach to climb still higher. But for the 
mere idler, who, without expense to himself, would like 
to while away a careless hour with an equally idle com- 
panion in a comfortable reading, lecture, or concert room, 
he made no provision whatever. I imagine that the w r orld 
has produced few men who were more intolerant of this 
class of persons than George Peabody. 

Since writing the above, I have seen an intimate friend of 
Mr. Peabody 's who had talked with him freely about his 
gifts, and had corresponded with him for years on the sub- 
ject. He confirms all I have said. He says Mr. Peabody 
never dreamed of founding here what is called a charity 
institution ; and least of all had he any idea of spending 
his money on mere amusements for the people. Instruction 
was the first, and the central idea of all his gifts. Even 
his lodging houses are to instruct the poor in the value of 
comfortable homes, without degrading them by alms- 
giving. He struck the key note of all his subsequent acts 
of beneficence in the toast which he sent with his first gift 
to his native town, Danvers : li Education,, a debt which 
the present oives to future generations. 

THE OBJECTS OF THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

The discontent of the public with the Institute is not 
accounted for in the superficial criticisms which have been 
made on the rules which govern its library, its lectures, and 
its concerts. These rules are such as every well established 
and successful institution of the kind has adopted, partly 
for its own security, but mainly to preserve that order, 
decorum, and quietness, which are essential to those who 
wish to enjoy its privileges. The only two rules to which 
any just exception could be taken have been repealed. 
Single tickets to the lectures have been issued ; and, for the 
purpose of accommodating the public, more fully, a box for 



24 THE OBJECTS OF THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

the sale of tickets has been opened in the vestibule of the 
building on the evening of the concerts. But there is 
undoubtedly a disappointment in the mind of the unthink- 
ing public which lies much deeper than this. The first 
cause of this disappointment, I think, is the situation of the 
building. People say that it is unfortunately placed. This 
I admit ; but it was placed where it is entirely out of regard 
to what was believed to be Mr. Peabody's wishes. Were 
the question an open one, to be decided to-day, I am quite 
sure a different spot would be selected. But however much 
we may regret the situation, it is now fixed, and cannot be 
altered. It is the part of wise men to submit to the inevi- 
table. Every day renders this position more central ; and, 
for the library at least, this error of place, if it be one, can- 
not seriously impair its usefulness. To the class of readers 
which such a library will chiefly attract, a few squares of 
additional walk is of far less importance than the quiet 
which they find here, and which they could not find in the 
bustling heart of the city. 

The second and chief cause of dissatisfaction in the 
public mind is, I think,* a total misunderstanding of the 
objects of this endowment. Without examining Mr. Pea- 
body's letters of instruction, the public seem to have 
decided that this was to be a free, popular institution, 
which the great masses of the people could use at their 
pleasure, and without the payment of money. Now, I 
say it deliberately, and after studying the question in its 
various bearings, that this was never intended to be a 
popular institution in the usual acceptation of that word ; 
that is, was never designed, like our public schools, for the 
personal use of the great body of the people. It is not a 
charity in any other sense than that in which all college 
endowments are charities. Like colleges, it cannot draw 
into its halls the great masses of the people. It cannot 
furnish that kind of entertainment which will attract or 
interest them. Its aim is higher and nobler than this, 
but not so popular. It seeks to instruct, to aid in the 
culture and development of the best minds in every social 



THE OBJECTS < <F THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 25 

rank. It excludes none who comply with its conditions. 
It seeks, in its peculiar way, to furnish instruction so good 
that all classes shall desire it, and so cheap that none who 
have the requisite culture to profit by its privileges shall 
be excluded from them. 

A young man of genius may have an irresistible love 
of science or literature, and yet be without means. For 
him this Institute is especially designed. It affords him, 
in its library and lectures, means of improvement which he 
could not possibly obtain without its aid. So it is in music, 
and so in art. It is aimed at the highest and the best. 
Other forms of charity Mr. Peabody has left to other insti- 
tutions. The State, through its common schools, gives to 
all an education sufficient for the ordinary occupations of 
life — all that Mr. Peabody himself ever had. The poor, 
we are told, are always to be with us ; and, in their 
common needs, they must be taken care of by those among 
whom they live. Even common reading, the ordinary 
books of the day, he leaves for others to provide. He 
meddles with none of these things. But the child of 
genius, the young man who has gained all he can from 
these common means of instruction and is yet ambitious 
to rise, he takes by the hand, and says: Here are the best 
books which man has ever written, come and read them ; 
here are subjects discussed by the most accomplished 
scholars, come and bear them ; here is the music which 
the highest genius of the world has produced, come and 
listen to it ; here are the best productions of art in all 
ages, come and study them. Such is the mission of this 
noble endowment, and people complain, and whine, and i 
scold because it is not popular. As well complain of a 
university that it does not furnish primary instruction ; 
of a gallery of art that it does not contain a drawing 
school. Can such an institution be popular? Is it in the 
power of any human agency to make it so ? I wot not ; 
for them study would be popular ; learning would be 
popular ; and the highest culture would charm and ravish 
the popular heart. The lecture room of a Tyndall, a 



26 THE OBJECTS OF THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 

Faraday, or a Lowell would be as crowded as the comic 
theatre or the circus. In no city of the world is this 
the case. No thoughtful man can expect it. The people 
get their advantage from such institutions, and they are 
immense advantages, by sending their gifted sons and 
daughters to them, and by the reflex influence which such 
culture exerts on every community in which it exists. 
Witness the respect of the Paris mobs for its great art 
galleries ; witness the enthusiasm of the Athenian demos 
for the adornment of their city in art and architecture. 
Such indirect elevation of the many through the culture 
of the few this Institute ought to aid and will aid. But the 
process will be a slow one, and its managers must bear the 
abuse that comes from unreasonable expectations, and from 
that impatience for quick results which is so characteristic 
of the American people. Many sensible people amongst 
us have so little experience, and apparently so little confi- 
dence, in such institutions, that they would be glad to see 
it brought within the compass of their own narrow views — 
would prefer to see it dragged down, from the high position 
which Mr. Peabody gave it, to the common level of all 
they see around them. If its founder had not provided it 
with an endowment large enough to carry it safely through 
its day of small things, and enable it to outlive its detrac- 
tors, the prejudice which has been excited against it might 
have destroyed it altogether. As it is, the Institute is 
safe, and the abuse heaped upon it only impairs its use- 
fulness to the present generation. An institution intended 
for all time, it will survive the jealousies, the petty spite, 
the prejudices, and the disappointments of the hour, from 
whatever sources they spring: and I firmly believe that 
it will, at no distant day, become the pride and the glory 
of Baltimore. To strangers unacquainted with our local 
prejudices, the present feeling of some of our respectable 
people is utterly incomprehensible. There is not a city in 
Christendom which would not to-day be proud to accept 
this endowment just as it stands, and gladly erect a statue 
of honor to its founder in gratitude for the gift. Unde- 



MR. PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, &c. 27 

veloped as it is, the loss of this Institute would create an 
aching void in the minds of many studious persons, and 
would be deeply felt by a very large body of our most 
intelligent people. 



MR. PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, AND WHAT 
THE INSTITUTE IS DOING. 

I have said that this Institute, from its very nature,, 
cannot attract the great body of the people to its halls, 
and, in that sense, it can never be a popular institution. 
I will now endeavor to show this, point by point, on the 
authority of Mr. Peabocly's letters of instruction to the 
trustees ; and I will add some account of what the Institute 
is actually doing, in each of its departments, to advance 
the higher education of the people, which is the true object 
for which it was founded. 

I.— THE LIBRARY. 

The library is to be "free." This is popular in the best 
sense of the word. But it is to be composed of such books 
as are "not ordinarily attainable in the private libraries of 
the country," of such books as will "satisfy the researches 
of students." These books are to be "guarded and pre- 
served from abuse," and are "not to be taken out of the 
building." It is not to be constructed on the plan of a "cir- 
culating library," but it is to be a " library of reference." 
Mr. Peabody undoubtedly had the British Museum and 
the Imperial Library of Paris in view whea he wrote theue 
instructions, and not the Manchester Fres Library or the 
Boston Public Library. Could any reasonable man expect 
that a library, which contains none of the popular novels, 
and very little of the light, racy literature of the day, would 
attract the great busy masses of the people from their 
homes to read its ponderous volumes? 

The class of books which we do not purchase is the one 
most frequently called for in all popular libraries, as the 



28 MR - PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS. &c. 

following facts will show. Out of 82,000 books taken 
from the Mercantile Library of San Francisco during 1870, 
62,000 were novels; out of 30,000 taken from the Cincin- 
nati Mercantile Library during the same time, 24,000 
were classed as fiction ; and the proportion of novels called 
for in all popular libraries does not materially differ from 
this. I find by the reports that 75 per cent, of all the 
books used in the following libraries are of this class : 
Albany Young Men's Association, Brooklyn Mercantile, 
Philadelphia Mercantile, and New York City Apprentices' 
libraries ; while in the Detroit Public Library the novels 
amount to 87 per cent, of all the books used. The Boston 
Public Library often buys a hundred copies of a popular 
novel, while a single copy of such books as we purchase is 
usually sufficient for its readers. 

Though our library furnishes a very small amount of 
popular reading, it supplies a much more expensive class 
of books, and books much more difficult to procure — books 
of science, literature, history, travels, antiquities, and the 
mechanic arts. It contains, so far as we know, almost 
every Greek and Latin book written before the fall of Con- 
stantinople in 1453, including a large number of the old 
chronicles of the middle ages, and a full set of the Latin 
and Greek Fathers — about 800 authors — in the original 
tongues, with all the English translations that have been 
made of them ; including also five or six of the best codices 
of the Old and New Testament — fac-simile copies ; and 
complete sets of the English, French, and American Patent 
Office Reports. The binding alone of the English reports 
cost more than $10,000. The reading room, which is 
accessible to all callers, and in which the books can be 
taken from the shelves and consulted at pleasure, contains 
about 2,000 volumes of the best reference books in English, 
French, and German, including dictionaries of all known 
languages , encyclopaedias, biographical, theological and 
Bible dictionaries, and dictionaries of almost every science, 
art, profession, trade, and subject which possesses a dic- 
tionary. The library also takes one hundred and thirty 



MR. FEABODT'S INSTRUCTIONS, <Ec. 29 

periodicals in the English, French, and German languages, 
besides the transactions, proceedings, and other irregular 
serials, of nearly one hundred of the great academies and 
learned societies of the world. I found, a few weeks since 
by actual examination, that we have all the books quoted 
as authorities in Lea's Celibacy of the Clergy and in his 
Superstition and Force, books of original research and of 
profound learning. We also have nearly every book quoted 
in Lecky's History of Rationalism in Europe and in his 
European Morals, which are among the most learned of 
recent publications, and show a wide acquaintance with 
peculiar classes of literature. Of the 30 chronicles enume- 
rated as authorities in Gray's History of the Children's 
Crusades, we have all but two. I was told, a few days 
since, by probably the highest authority on the subject in 
the city, that this library must now be regarded as the 
second best in America for scientific purposes. Such facts 
hardly indicate that the library is a failure, as some would 
have us believe. It is the business of the Institute to col- 
lect books, not to create readers. Readers will as certainly 
find their way to this library, if it is true to itself, as the 
bird will find its summer home or its winter retreat. 

Thus, though our library cannot be called a popular one 
because it does not contain the light literature which would 
make it so, and because the books cannot be circulated 
among the people, is it no advantage to a city to possess 
such a collection as this, open to every citizen during a 
greater number of hours in each day than any similar col- 
lection of books with which I am acquainted? And we 
propose, at no distant day, to accommodate the public still 
further, by keeping the library open continuously from 
nine in the morning till ten at night— which is four hours 
in each day more than any similar library in the world is 
open. Any one having a question to decide, a problem to 
solve, a subject to investigate, has but to come here and 
call for tliem, and all the books on our shelves are at his 
service. This is an advantage which every person in 
search of knowledge can appreciate. 



30 M R PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, Ac. 

The library now contains 44,1)00 volumes, and its full 
value will only be known to the public when the new 
catalogue shall be printed. By that time it will probably 
have about 50,000 books on its shelves. 

Some persons may think it would have been better for 
the city had the entire fund been devoted to establishing a 
great reference and circulating library for the whole people. 
The sufficient reply to all such suggestions is, that Mr. 
Peabody did not see fit to found such a library, and the 
trustees must administer the trust as he directed them 
to do. 

II.— THE LECTURES. 

Lectures are to be delivered u by the most c* pable and 
accomplished scholars and men of science within the power 
of the trustees to procure." These lectures are to be " di- 
rected to instruction in science, art^ and literature," such 
" prices of admission being required as may serve to defray 
a portion of the necessary expenses/' But the great body 
of the people will not buy tickets at any price to attend 
such lectures as these. A course of lectures is sometimes 
given at the Lowell Institute in Boston, where the tickets 
are given away, to thirty persons ; and I have even heard 
of lectures delivered there to fifteen persons. Voluntarily 
to leave one's quiet home after the fatigues of the day, to 
give up ordinary amusements, and to go two evenings in 
every week to listen to distinguished scholars discoursing 
on the mysteries of science, literature, and art, presupposes 
an amount of thought, a love for knowledge, and a previous 
training, which no populace in the world has ever possessed. 

I believe, however, that this department of the Institute 
is capable of an expansion that will make it more exten- 
sively useful to the great body of the people than any of its 
other departments. By various courses of Class Lectures, 
such as have been recently established, instruction of a high 
grade, with costly experiments, can be given in every branch 
of science and iiterature ; at merely nominal prices ; and the 
people can here acquire such an education in these branches 



MR. PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, *c. 3l 

as can only be obtained elsewhere in the highest institu- 
tions of learning. Lectures can be given on literature, 
ancient and modern, on history, physiology, and ethnology, 
and on all the sciences, including botany and natural his- 
tory, the number of courses being multiplied to suit the 
wants of the people. The only limit to this expansion will 
be the difficulty of finding in our midst the right kind of 
lecturers. Had we a college in the neighborhood this diffi- 
culty would disappear. 

As the aim of the Institute is to elevate and instruct our 
own people, we seek, as far as possible, to obtain these lec- 
turers at home — usually young men who will be almost as 
much benefited by delivering the lectures as their pupils 
are in hearing them. We thus encourage the study of 
science and literature among our young people, by offering 
them the best facilities for improvement in these useful 
branches of knowledge ; and we equally encourage our men 
of literary and scientific tastes in the pursuit of their favor- 
ite studies, by offering them some remuneration while thus 
engaged, and by giving them an opportunity of making 
themselves known to the public. Two courses of these 
Class Lectures, each course consisting of forty lectures,, were 
delivered during the past winter. This is the only city in 
the Union where such instruction can be obtained on such 
terms. 

The lectures of the Institute have been as well attended 
as such courses usually are in any city of the world. Four 
or five hundred persons through the season is a good audi- 
ence for Paris, London, or Boston. I was told by the 
manager of the Lowell lectures, that the audience which 
listens to them seldom exceeds, on any one evening, a 
third of the tickets issued. Occasionally, as here, the hall 
is crowded, and sometimes the lectures have been repeated 
the next evening to accommodate the crowds that sought 
admission. During the present season, we have sold more 
than 1,100 season, and 1,300 single tickets to our general 
course. I think it is a credit to the intelligence of Balti- 
more, that so large an audience should listen with plea- 



OZi MR- PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, Ac. 

sure, night after night, to lectures of so high a character 
in style, thought, and subject as those of Prof. Lowell. 
The lectures at the Institute have given an immense 
development to the taste of our people for this mode of 
instruction, so that, while our audiences have increased, 
a much larger number of lectures have been delivered 
in the city during the past season than ever before. We 
have had at the Institute itself no less than 112 lectures 
during the winter. An institution that is doing so much 
work, and doing it well too, can hardly be called " idle" 
or " useless." 

Ill— ACADEMY OF MUSIC. 

The Academy of Music is "to diffuse and cultivate a taste' ' 
for music by " providing a capacious and suitably furnished 
saloon," by il furnishing facilities for the best exhibitions 
of the art, for studying its principles and practising its 
compositions," and by " periodical concerts aided by the 
best talent and eminent skill within their (the trustees') 
means to procure. " It is not to be an " elementary school," 
but is "to furnish that sort of instruction, under able teach- 
ers, in the theory and higher branches of music * * * 
for which heretofore there has been no provision in your 
community, and which students have been obliged to seek 
abroad." " Such charges for admission to its privileges as 
the trustees may consider proper" are to be made. 

A school of music, which teaches none of the elements of 
the art, which begins with the theory and principles of 
music, which only gives instruction of so high a grade that 
it cannot be obtained elsewhere in this country, which fur- 
nishes facilities for practising only the best musical compo- 
sitions, with concerts at which the most eminent skill is to 
perform and the best compositions to be exhibited, cannot 
be called a popular school. How large a portion of the 
people are prepared to profit by such instruction, or are 
capable of enjoying such concerts ? Shoo Fly will undoubt- 
edly draw larger audiences. 



MR. PEABODYS INSTRUCTIONS. Ac. 33 

The difficulty, if not the impossibility, of literally carry- 
ing out these instructions, has led the trustees to establish 
a school of music of as high a grade as the public would be 
likely to support. The number of our people going abroad 
for instruction, and the number seeking the highest grade 
of instruction at home, is so small, that an establishment 
designed exclusively for them would have little prospect of 
success. Besides this the aid derived from their govern- 
ments renders instruction in the European schools as cheap 
as Ave can afford it, while the cost of living abroad is much 
less ; and these schools have an experience and a skill in 
teaching, and a name in the world of music, which a new 
school could not possibly possess. All these facts were 
important, and were seriously considered in establishing a 
school here. It was thought that a school of instruction 
could be organized which the public would support, and 
that, as musical culture and a taste for the compositions of 
the great masters increased, the grade of instruction in the 
school, and the requirements for admission to its privileges, 
could be gradually raised to the standard which Mr. Pea- 
body required. In their anxiety to give the public the full 
benefit of this department, the trustees have certainly given 
to the language of Mr. Peabody a most liberal construction 
in favor of popular education in music. They have even 
gone so far in this direction as to admit six free pupils from 
the public schools to the privileges of the Academy. 

The trustees had considered all the difficulties men- 
tioned above ; but they had not considered another series 
of difficulties more potent than these, which the establish- 
ment of the school ha<* developed. They had not con- 
sidered the enmity of the teachers of music, and of the 
teachers of boarding schools in the city, to an establish- 
ment which offers, at less than half the price, much 
greater advantages for a musical education than they can 
give. They had not sufficiently weighed the personal 
jealousies of musicians, of the dealers in music, of the 
dealers in musical instruments, and of the different musical 
cliques and coteries in the city, each wishing an exclusive- 



34 MK - PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS!; &o. 

voice in the selection of instruments, of performers, or of 
the music to be performed. They did not expect the 
indifference and neglect of our best amateur musicians, 
whose influence kindly exerted would have been powerful 
in perfecting the orchestra and the plan of musical instruc- 
tion. They did not count upon the unfriendly and injuri- 
ous criticism — to use a mild expression — of some of our 
papers, which, instead of giving a kindly word of encour- 
agement or of correction when needed, demanded of the 
young institution just starting into life, with an untrained 
orchestra newly collected, all the precision, all the vigor, 
and all the delicacy of rendering, which characterize the 
best trained orchestras, and the oldest institutions of the 
world. These various causes, none of which ought to 
have existed because they seriously interfere with the 
musical culture of the city, have had a depressing and 
injurious influence on the Academy. Whether it will lead 
the trustees to suspend all efforts to continue this depart- 
ment as a school of music with a trained orchestra, I am 
unable to say. Of one thing, however, I feel confident. 
They cannot devote a larger sum to the support of this 
department than they have done for the past two years. 
A just division of the funds at their disposal would not 
permit it, even if they were so disposed. 

Last year the trustees spent on this department, exclu- 
sive of rent, care of hall, heat, and light, and in addition 
to all the income from tuition and concerts, $7,155 69 ; 
and the expenses this year will be about the same. Every 
pupil who pays $50 for a year's instruction costs the Insti- 
tute $100 ; and every ticket to the concerts, which is sold 
for 50 cents, costs the Institute $1 even when the hall is 
well filled ; but this season these tickets have cost the 
Institute $1.50 each. If the public will support the con- 
certs by attending them, they can be given regularly 
during the greater part of each year ; but, without a proper 
support from the public, the number must be reduced to 
suit the funds at the disposal of the trustees. This, I 
believe, was the view which Mr. Peabody himself took 
of the case when he was last here. 



'MR. PEABODYS INSTRUCTIONS, &c. 35 

There are, in this country, but four trained orchestras, 
which undertake the regular production of the best musi- 
cal compositions. The Peabpdy orchestra, though by gen- 
eral consent not the first, can fairly claim an honorable 
position among these organizations, while its friends 
award it high praise for the production of classical music. 
However this may be, we must remember that it is not 
yet three years old ; and I think all musical judges, how- 
ever much they may differ as to the absolute excellence of 
its performances, will agree that it has, during its short 
life, greatly improved in the precision, smoothness, and 
accuracy of its renderings. No amount of practice can 
give to instruments of different manufacture or metal that 
uniformity and smoothness of tone which belong to those 
of precisely the same make and material, like those used 
by the Thomas orchestra. The Peabody orchestra is un- 
doubtedly the best orchestra which Baltimore has ever 
possessed, and, with proper encouragement and kindly 
criticism from the public, it would gradually perfect its 
own performances, and greatly aid in the development of 
the musical taste of the city. But it cannot succeed with- 
out the support of the public ; and, for want of this sup- 
port, it may be necessary to dissolve the organization, lose 
all that has been gained in a practice of three years, and 
wait till another generation shall better understand its 
own interests, and shall have more regard for the good 
name of the city. 

The Thomas orchestra charges but 50 cents admission at 
home, but it derives a part of its support from perform- 
ances in other cities, where its tickets are high, while it 
increases its receipts at home in other ways than by fees 
for admission. The Harvard Musical Association in Bos- 
ton gives ten concerts each season, for which season tickets 
are sold at $10 each, and single tickets a $1.50 each. At 
these prices the Association is able to fill the Music Hall, 
which seats 3,000 persons ; and I was told by one of the 
directors, who was here a few weeks ago, that they would 
clear this season from $1,500 to $2,000. This reduction 



36 MR - PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, &c. 

of tickets from .$1 .50 to 50 cents measures the advantage in 
price which this Institute gives to the people of Baltimore 
over those in Boston who attend such performances ; for 
there is no reason why our orchestra should not in time 
become as perfect as the one in Boston, and no reason why 
as many of our people should not in time attend its per- 
formances. But it must be remembered that Boston has 
built a music hall which seats 3,000 persons, and has pro- 
vided it with an organ which cost $60,000, the largest on 
this continent and the largest but two in the world ; that 
she supports two schools of music, of which one, according 
to its catalogue, contains 1,800 pupils, and the other 300, 
while the number of persons receiving private instruction 
is immense. This interest in music, and this general 
musical culture, explain how the Puritan City can furnish 
an audience of 3,000 persons at the above prices to each of 
ten Symphony Concerts in one season, while numerous 
other musical entertainments are going on at the same 
time. 

Had our Academy but half the number of pupils which 
the Boston schools contain, we should not be able to sell a 
single ticket to our concerts, as our pupils would rill the 
entire hall. It must ever be borne in mind that no portion 
of this Institute is designed to furnish mere amusement to 
the people. Education is the one great aim of all its depart- 
ments. The concerts are an adjunct of the music school, 
and are intended to supplement its instructions by artistic 
exhibitions of the best musical compositions, thus ele- 
vating the taste of the pupils, and, in general, the musi- 
cal taste of the people. To accomplish this last object 
in the best manner, the orchestra must reside amongst us, 
must be a part of the trained, musical force of the city, 
whose presence here, and whose influence outside of the 
Academy, shall be recognized and felt in the general 
musical culture of the people. It was supposed that the 
performers at these concerts — orchestra and solos — would, 
in time, be drawn almost exclusively from the graduates of 
the school.. 



MR. PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, &c. 37 

It will thus be seen, that all parts of the system are 
hound together into a consistent whole. The training in the 
school is to culminate in the concerts ; and the concerts are 
intended to exhibit the culture of the school, and are to 
spread that culture among the people. I think all must 
acknowledge that bringing performers from abroad for 
occasional concerts would have far less influence on the 
musical education of the city, than a successful working of 
the present plan, which seeks to form a body of thoroughly 
trained musicians at home. Private enterprise can always 
be relied upon to supply such concerts, and they will 
become more frequent and will he more fully attended as 
musical culture is more widely diffused among the people. 
Theodore Thomas finds no difficulty in rilling the 3,000 
seats at the Music Hall in Boston, several times during 
every winter. 

IV.— THIS GALLERY OF ART. 

The Gallery of Art is to he "supplied with the works 
of the best masters," is "to be rendered instructive to 
artists in the pursuit of their peculiar studies," is to be 
so regulated as to "secure, at stated periods, free access 
to it, by all orderly and respectable persons, who may take 
an interest in works of this kind ; ' ' but it is also to have 
"periodical exhibitions" which " shall supply a valuable 
fund for its enlargement." In his Zanesville letter, ten 
years later, Mr. Peabody says, he did not mean to establish 
an elementary school of art, but only to furnish such in- 
struction as artists usually go abroad to obtain. 

The number of artists seeking such instruction as is here 
described — and he speaks only of artists — must be even 
smaller than the number of persons desiring the highest 
education in music. If such a school were opened, it could, 
from the nature of the instruction to be given there, have 
but few pupils. Though Mr. Peabody does not say that a 
charge shall he made for instruction in this school, it is 
clearly implied in what he does say, and it is well known 



38 MR - PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS. &c. 

that such was his intention! The fund is utterly inade- 
quate to support free schools in art or music. 

The necessity of spending a very large sum, at the begin- 
ing, on the library — the chief object of the endowment, the 
great cost of works of art, the want of proper rooms in 
which to exhibit them, their inability to erect a suitable 
building without seriously crippling the future operations 
and usefulness of the Institute, and their desire to consider 
carefully the precise form which should be given to this 
department, have hitherto prevented the trustees from 
putting it into active operation. The Committee on Art 
has been directed to report a plan of organization, and 
$5,000 have been appropriated to adorn the interior of 
the present building. This is all that has been done by 
the Board. 

Thus, it will be seen, that the Institute is an educational 
institution of a peculiar character, and that it is to be 
classed, not with places of popular entertainment, but 
with colleges and the highest schools of learning. Like 
them, it pre-supposes, in its beneficiaries, a certain amount 
of preparation, certain peculiar tastes, and certain qualities 
of mind which are confined to no class in the social scale, 
but which the majority of persons in all classes do not 
possess. It is to be regarded as a popular institution in 
the sense in which they are popular, and in no other sense. 

How unreasonable the public expectation has been, and 
how impossible it would be for the trustees to meet the 
demands made upon them, can be shown by a few facts 
worthy of consideration. The public expect a free circu- 
lating and reference library, such as Boston pays $70,000 
a year to support. Dr. Bush has lately given $1,000,000 
to establish a library in Philadelphia, and it is understood 
that Mr. Lenox has given the same amount, together with 
his own large collection of costly books, said to be worth 
at least $200,000, to found a library in New York. Both 
of these gentlemen, as scholars, knew the wants of such 
libraries, and their gifts may be regarded as their estimate 
of the funds required to meet these wants. The Astor 



MR PEABODYS INSTRUCTIONS. &o. 39 

Library, without an additional endowment from the Astor. 
family, will be a failure for want of funds with which to 
purchase new books. The same public requires courses of 
lectures, such as Mr Lowell established in Boston with an 
endowment of $250,000, or an annual expenditure of 
815,000. It expects the Institute to have an orchestra as 
perfect in its performances as that of Theodore Thomas, 
which meets every day in the year, and which could not 
be maintained for less than $20,000 a year in addition to 
all its receipts from the sale of tickets. It then demands 
as director the best artist and leader in Europe, who could 
not be procured on any terms ; but no such person as is 
desired could be expected to come here under $5,000 a 
year. This same public expects the trustees to establish 
a gallery of art of the first order. Mr. Corcoran has 
recently endowed such an institution in Washington, giv- 
ing it bis own large collection of paintings and $1,000,000 
in money, and promising it $300,000 more. These sums 
represent his estimates of its requirements, which can not 
be less than $60,000 a year. Thus $170,000 a year would 
be required to support this Institute on a scale to meet the 
demands of the public. In addition to this annual expen- 
diture, there must be an immediate outlay of not less than 
$200,000 for a proper music hall and organ, and $200,000 
more for the grounds and buildings required for a gallery 
of art. Now, the entire income which the trustees had 
at their disposal, to meet all these demands, was last year 
$45,000. 

I have no comments to make on these facts and figures, 
except to add, that, if free instruction in music were also to 
be given, not less than $60,000 of additional annual income 
would be required to provide for this most expensive of all 
the branches of education. 

I have thus finished what I had to say about the pur- 
poses and the management of this Institute, and the mis- 
conceptions of the public regarding it. I have faith to 
believe that it will yet be one of the most powerful of those 
influences which are to raise the character of our city in 



40 MK - PEABODY'S INSTRUCTIONS, &c. 

literature and art, and which are to make it a desirable 
residence for cultivated men. Hitherto it has offered no 
attractions to this class of persons ; and it is consequently 
poor in every attribute of culture. It cannot draw into it 
such persons from abroad ; it cannot even retain its own 
gifted sons at home. The Johns Hopkins University will 
undoubtedly give a powerful impulse to learning, and 
promises to Baltimore a future of higher culture than she 
has hitherto possessed. I hope that some wealthy citizen, 
actuated by a desire to benefit his fallow-men, and to erect 
a permanent monument to his own enterprise in acquiring 
wealth, and to his intelligence in using it, will build and 
endow a Museum of Natural History — the next pressing 
want of this city in the direction of culture. Then, with 
a deepened channel to the harbor, with the completion of 
rail road and steamboat lines, with an awakened spirit of 
public enterprise, and above all, with these vastly im- 
proved means for attaining the highest culture, Baltimore 
will offer new attractions as a place of residence, will give 
an additional charm to her societj', and will throw over all 
classes of her citizens a portion of that refining influence 
which culture alone can give. Then our Calverts will not 
need to retire to Newport for books and congenial society ; 
our Hyatts will be able to find a proper field for their 
activity nearer than Salem ; our Mayers may possibly be 
retained to adorn our own higher institutions of learning ; 
and our McLeods will not be compelled to seek distant 
Cambridge for sympathy and support. Or if men like 
these leave us, others of equal culture from abroad will 
come to fill their places ; for scienc , art, and literature are 
cosmopolitan, and ask no questions of birth-place or sta- 
tion. And then, perhaps, Ave shall reach that millenium 
of knowledge, when all our intelligent citizens will learn 
to appreciate the enlarged views of Mr. Peabody in so 
generously founding an educational institution of the 
highest grade, for the benefit of their gifted sons and 
daughters. 



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